FINCHforum

Hello,

Our zebra pair had four babies which are now 6 weeks old. Last week I put the babies in their own cage because I started to notice some of the babies 'turning' on their dad and picking on him. He seemed down in the dumps and once I removed the babies he was back to his old self the next day and even his eyes looked brighter. I figured there were male babies, in fact, it looks like they are all males now that I see they are all getting spotted feathers below their wings like their dad has.

Any way, the dad was missing feathers around the back and sides of his neck which I thought the babies pulled out. I did see this happening a few times. I have been noticing that the dad has been scratching all around his neck a lot these past few days and now I am wondering if he had been pulling out his feathers as well. I'm starting to get concerned about mites but I just wanted to see if anyone has any idea what might be going on. I'm hoping he's just itchy because he has new feathers coming in. The female hasn't been itching at all and I do keep their cage really clean.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Michelle

Hi Michelle,

If none of the other birds at scratching excessively I would not think mites. But keep watching for that.
It sounds like someone was pulling out feathers and it is bothering him. If the female is not doing it for sure it would be okay to leave her in there, but if you see her doing it I would seperate him to a cage by himself for a while and see if they grow back.

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply! I do keep a close eye on the birds and haven't seen the female picking on the male at all so it probably is just the new growth bugging him. I'm thinking of giving him egg food to help him grow his feathers back faster.

Take care,
Michelle

Eggfood is great for growing feathers back. Feathers are mostly protein.

I had read on the forum here about the egg food and that it's good to give to the birds to grow back their feathers quickly but I didn't know why. That makes a lot of sense now. When our female pulled out her feathers while the babies were still nestlings I increased her egg food and, man, those feathers grew back fast. I will give it to the male for sure since his neck is taking way too long to grow back.